The Baker Street Girls
by PrairieLily
Summary: When their weekly girls afternoon takes an intriguing turn, Molly, Rosie, and Eurus find themselves digging into a mystery buried in the Lestrade's cottage home. Eurstrade universe, Sherlolly in the background, 9 chapters, COMPLETE. The core characters do not belong to me, no copyright infringement is intended!
1. Chapter 1

_This story, set in my Eurstrade universe, takes place within a year of the marriage of Will Holmes and Rosie Watson in the story "Union", and within a few months of the marriage of Eurus and Greg (which I haven't written about in a dedicated story). Please be gentle, it's my first attempt at a mystery in many, many years (I don't count "The Case of the Missing Pooh" as that was light and fluffy), and while I've tried to do research on some of the clues and historical points to make sure they were reasonable conclusions and plot points, there may be inconsistencies within the story itself. I think I was maybe just letting the plot bunnies have free rein to see if I could actually write a mystery anymore, as they've never been my strong suit. The term "Baker Street Girls" is one coined by Mrs. Hudson in her chapter in "The Adventures of Eurus Holmes". As always, I have tried to write a story that connected it to the Eurstrade universe but wasn't so entwined with the other stories that they would be required reading to know what was going on in this one. I hope you enjoy this one, the first chapter sat in my documents folder for a few weeks before I actually was able to continue it and finally bring it to conclusion last night._

* * *

Molly Hooper-Holmes and Eurus Lestrade had made a weekly ritual of meeting for a "girls' afternoon". Sometimes it was on a Monday, sometimes a Tuesday, and on those days when they managed to meet up on a Thursday, they were joined by Molly's goddaughter-turned-daughter-in-law, Rosie Holmes – on her day off from her duties as a Police Constable with New Scotland Yard.

But, whichever day they managed to get together, they always made sure to do it at least once weekly.

On this particular Thursday, when the three oldest of the four men in their lives had decided it was a good time to collaborate on a particularly perplexing case, the ladies had found themselves with the evening to themselves as well, having decided this time to meet at the Lestrades small cottage home just barely past the outskirts of London.

For Molly, their case meant that Sherlock didn't feel compelled to shoot any new holes in the living room wallpaper at 221B, something that Mrs. Hudson was grateful for as well. "Hudders" was always worried that one of these days one or more of those rounds would make its way all the way through the wall and kill the neighbour's cat, or budgie, or mother-in-law, or something equally inconvenient. For Molly, it also meant that her husband wasn't going to be going on the sniff at the morgue for spare body parts on which to "keep his mind and intellect sharp". At least… not this week.

For Rosie, it meant that, even though her dad hadn't quite fully retired yet from his private medical practice, he would have a little variety thanks to her Uncle Sherlock, and her newest Uncle, Greg. She knew her dad was always happiest when he was out solving mysteries and generally stirring the shit pot with Sherlock. The two men had been fast friends when they first met, and through the years, in spite of a couple of incidents of being so seriously on the outs that Mrs. Hudson feared they may never speak to each other again, their friendship had still managed to survive very much intact.

For Eurus, it meant that Greg wasn't obsessing over whether he should install hardwood floors, or simply replace the ceramic tiles in their bedroom. Eurus preferred carpet, but that was only because she detested cold hard floors after spending so many decades in solitary confinement at Sherrinford. She had told herself that a plush throw rug on her side of the bed would suffice, because she was absolutely loathe to mention her preference for carpeting – that would bring in a whole new complication to Greg's already frustrating indecision. In spite of still being newlyweds, she and Greg had been friends for more than 25 years – and best friends for nearly the entire duration of that - and so she knew damned well that one decision would only lead to obsessing over the next decision in the whole agonizing process.

Gregory really, REALLY needed another hobby, Eurus was absolutely convinced.

So did Sherlock, Molly agreed. For the sake of everyone's sanity.

Rosie, always concerned about her dad since he had decided that he was "getting too bloody old for this bullshit" and the dating scene just wasn't his thing anymore, concurred as well.

Put the legendary crime-solving duo of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson together with their nearly-as-legendary Scotland Yard counterpart DI (Retired) Greg Lestrade, and you had John as the vinegar to Sherlock's oil – with Greg added to the mix to stir things up, the trio of bored yet distinguished (and occasionally, grumpy) old gentlemen together made a perfectly emulsified team of old cronies who could keep themselves occupied with a case for DAYS.

For the women in their lives, this was as good as gold itself.

But the funny thing was, that for a doctor, a New Scotland Yard copper, and a particularly clever woman with a particular knack for solving particularly complex puzzles – it never once occurred to them that they might find themselves embroiled in solving a mystery of their own – and giving the men a run for their money, to boot.


	2. Chapter 2

Rosie, waiting on Molly and Eurus to emerge from the kitchen with movie snacks, occupied her time studying some of the unique architecture and generations-old hand made tiles in the old cottage her Uncle Greg had decided to purchase upon his retirement from New Scotland Yard. Having been raised by the previously mentioned "legendary duo" of Holmes and Watson, Rosie's skills of observation had been just one of the things that had sown the desire to become a detective. As the years had passed, for the better part of twenty-three years - before a new Governor at Sherrinford overrode Mycroft's decision to allow Eurus to leave at will, "for no particular reason other than to be an utter cock" as John had so delicately put it – she had made a weekly ritual of visiting her family and growing her deep friendship with Greg. As a result, the DI's increasingly frequent presence in Rosie's midst had also added another desire to the mix – a drive to become more than just a freelance consulting detective, like her Godfather, Sherlock. Rosie, from a young teenager, knew without a single doubt that she wanted to become a part of New Scotland Yard. She had more than one set of mentor's footsteps that her heart compelled her to follow in.

John, Sherlock, Molly, and Greg had all expected the desire to pass, as many "life goals" were apt to do in fickle and indecisive young teenagers, but Eurus saw in the little girl she had playfully dubbed "Dozy Rosie" as a toddler, for her habit of sleeping hard after playing harder, that Rosie Watson was the stuff of determination and passionate drive. Once she had made her mind up, Eurus knew, there wasn't much that would budge Rosamund Mary Watson, and whatever the young girl did, she did with every ounce of her heart and soul.

With her best friend-turned husband, Will Holmes - himself studying to become a forensics technician (again, inspired by his parentage and rearing), Will's Uncle Mycroft had been known more than once in the past couple of years to state with smug satisfaction that he had, in fact, turned out to be even more brilliantly prophetic than he had initially thought. The children of John and Mary Watson, and Sherlock and Molly Holmes, were quite obviously destined to do far more than to simply join their families together officially through marriage. They were meant, Mycroft asserted with his familiar over-inflated confidence, to become a legendary investigative duo in and of themselves.

And so, when Rosie noticed something very obscure but nevertheless odd about some of the old floor tiles near the fireplace, it naturally grabbed her attention. There was something about their design that smacked of an unusual pattern, and her instincts – something that Uncle Greg had proudly told her would serve her well and help her to rise within the ranks – nagged at her to investigate.

Perhaps it was the curiosity that was a symptom of her keen observation skills, or maybe it was her unrelenting drive to find answers that had served her so well even in her rookie year as a PC. Whichever it was, suddenly Rosie had forgotten all about the double feature they'd decided upon – a couple of classic movies, both about as old as she was - one an installment of the old Star Trek franchise "reboots" as they had been called back then, and another based on an old comic book hero in some sort of red cape that allowed him to levitate.

"Auntie," she said to Eurus as the youngest Holmes sibling walked into the room behind Molly, "what do you make of this? There's an odd pattern in the tiles, and they seem to lead," she said, as her eyes, glued to the floor, led her feet towards the master bedroom, "right to here."

Eurus cleared her throat. "Honestly I haven't noticed, Rosie. What's in the floor tile pattern isn't quite my focus when I'm… um… in the bedroom." Molly snorted from near the fireplace, trying to supress a cheeky giggle and failing miserably.

Eurus heard her sister-in-law's burst and looked over at her, winking knowingly and not even bothering to stop the glowing newlywed grin. Her curiosity now piqued, she padded over to where Rosie had been standing, studying the floor. Slowly, eyes downwards, she retraced Rosie's steps, her clever mind processes beginning to kick in. Molly, now curious herself, looked at the floor with the broader strokes of a pathologist making an initial observation before really getting into the finer details of the matter.

"The pattern seems isolated. It isn't anywhere else, really is it? It seems to create a trail once you notice it. How old is this cottage anyway?" Molly asked.

Eurus took a deep breath, letting it out quickly, thinking. "Oh, my," she said, placing her hands on her hips and giving her head a quick shake. "I'm not even sure. Gregory mentioned it when he first moved me in here after my release from Sherrinford, but to be honest that whole period of time was so mentally and emotionally overwhelming that he could have told me he'd joined a circus troupe and moved the lot of them into the attic and I wouldn't retain it. Now that I really think about it, I believe based upon the architecture and such that it may be late Victorian, or Edwardian at the latest."

"Auntie," Rosie said from the bedroom, "parts of the pattern seem to repeat. I know this sounds a little crazy, but do you think it could be some sort of a code? I mean if we really think about it, it creates a trail and is isolated from the rest of the floor. Of course, certain words and letters repeat often in the English language. Vowels, consonants, some words such as 'the', 'and', etcetera." Rosie, at this point, had planted herself belly down on the floor, her small pocket torch pulled out and illuminating the underside of the bed. "This pattern has irregular yet consistent repeats," she said, gradually wiggling herself under the bed, her words becoming muted by the underside of the mattress.

Molly, realizing the movies would be waiting for another night, was only mildly disappointed. She had heard that the actor portraying the villain in one of their chosen movies, and the hero in the other, was really rather 'hot damn' sexy, but what pathologist and wife of Sherlock Holmes didn't love a good real life mystery?


	3. Chapter 3

Eurus Lestrade sat on the floor of her bedroom, legs drawn up and her arms wrapped around her knees, her fingers interlocking. Her recently shorn salt and pepper locks draped softly around her ears and brushed softly across her forehead in graceful wavy layers, the curls she shared with her youngest older brother set free from the weight of her previous longer style. Her bright blue eyes closed, on her face sat a smile of peaceful concentration and focus. There was a code on the floor, and if they were going to find the conclusion to this little mystery that her home with Greg apparently held, they would first have to find the beginning of it. And the beginning, all three of them had judged, lay in the code.

Eurus, Molly had pointed out, would be the one to decipher it. In the meantime, Rosie's observational skills would be best used in other parts of the house. After all, the petite pathologist had said, whoever went to the trouble of creating such a complex puzzle couldn't reasonably have stopped there. Eurus was in agreement – any mind capable of such things smacked of focus and obsession, and would never be satisfied to stop at leaving a vague message on the floor, and nothing else. There must be other secrets held safely until now by this quaint and cozy old cottage.

Rosie's mind went into overdrive, Molly following behind, taking note of other things that Rosie may miss. There was seeing, and there was observing. Molly knew, as did Eurus many years ago, that sometimes the observations overshadowed and overcomplicated things meant to be simple and obvious. Hiding in plain sight, Sherlock had once said of a particularly vile criminal who had nearly killed him in his own efforts to not only stop the serial killer known as Culverton Smith, but to save, at Mary Watson's posthumous pleading, her beloved bereaved husband, John Watson.

As a pathologist, Molly knew that sometimes the answers lay in the obvious. Over the years, on the cold stainless steel tables that were part of her domain, the answers were sometimes just that simple. This person had died from exsanguination when their throat had been deeply slit – or that person had perished from strangulation, evident from the petechial hemorrhaging in their eyes. Sometimes the gunshot wound to their temple or the knife wound straight into their heart made it painfully clear what had killed them… Or perhaps any and all signs of foul play were absent, because they had simply met their end in the most obvious natural way, all toxicology and other forensics testing having come up empty to explain their demise.

Sometimes, a spade was really just a spade.

Molly's advantage lay not so much in the power of her own observational skills, but in the lack of possessing the same brilliant mind that her husband, sister-in-law, and daughter-in-law had. There was such a thing, she knew, as being TOO clever. So Molly looked around, taking note of things that may just be hiding in plain sight.

"Rosie," Molly said, "take a look at this."

Rosie, deep in concentration studying the bricks surrounding the fireplace, took a couple of moments to acknowledge her. Molly mentally shook her head and smiled. No, it wasn't obvious that Sherlock had co-parented this girl with John before she had moved into 221B as Sherlock's fiancée. – no, no, not obvious at all, not in the least.

"There's a gap here," Molly said, when Rosie had finally turned her attention towards her, pointing to the mortar between two bricks approximately one metre from the fireplace. "The edges are smooth and worn so I doubt it's recent, and besides I don't think Greg has said anything about refurbishing the fireplace. Look," she said, tracing her finger around one brick. "The gap surrounds this brick right here. They're not fresh, they've been here for quite some time."

If Molly hadn't known Rosie as well as she did and hadn't had any part in her rearing, she might have been surprised when Rosie reached into cargo pants to pull out a pocket knife.

"We can dig this brick out willy nilly and piss off Uncle Greg for mucking with his beloved fireplace," Rosie said, in her "the game is on" voice, "or we can take scrapings for analysis. If there are any discrepancies in the chemical composition of the mortar, we'll know definitively that this isn't simply a matter of the cottage naturally settling and gravity creating fissures in the joins."

"Or you can just dig it out and we see what we find," Eurus said grimly. Molly and Rosie turned to look at her.

"I believe I've cracked the code, girls." Molly recognized the tone in Eurus's voice, and she knew it wasn't good.

"I'll explain to Gregory when he returns home, but I think he'll understand."


	4. Chapter 4

"So, I thought at first that it would be a rhyme or a song or something quite interesting, but really it's just a set of simple directions put into a complex code. But first, Rosie," Eurus said, turning to her niece, "do you have access to historical case files? As I have a rough estimate as to how old this cottage is, if there are any missing persons reports from that general period in local history, it may assist us to determine a time frame if the directions do turn out to refer to any missing persons."

Molly nodded in agreement, and though Rosie had barely heard what her Aunt had said, she still managed to keep one ear turned towards her as she started to dig into the crumbling mortar.

If Aunt Eurus said that Uncle Greg would understand, then he would understand. In spite of his gruff and tough career copper exterior, what she teased him for by calling it his 'Lestrade Façade', she knew that her Uncle was a big softie when it came down to it – especially when it came to his niece, and most especially when it came to his blushing bride.

"I think what we are looking for may be something small, such as a book, or a note, or something that may fit behind a single brick," Eurus said. She tried not to wince at the coarse sandy bits that were falling from her husband's beloved fireplace – the one part of their cottage that he had vowed never to refurbish or update – only repair and maintain its structural integrity as necessary. There was something comforting about the charm of it, he had said. Knowing that it had warmed both body and soul of generations before him was one of the selling points for him of the little home. Some things, you repaired as a matter of practicality, or simply changed to suit you and create your own memories. Others, he asserted, you left well enough alone, and let the established past story become a part of your own, building on it like layers of petals in a rose bud.

"Mum," Rosie said to Molly, reverting to an old habit when she was too focused to remember which particular of several roles exactly Molly played in her life at any given moment, "help me with this, I think it's loose enough…"

Molly scrutinized the loosened brick, then stepped forward, locking her fingertips into the gap that Rosie had created. With five minutes or so of careful focused wiggling, finally the brick came free.

Eurus winced again. Oh, this had better be worth it.

In for a penny, in for a pound, she finally decided. Greg would at worst be annoyed. At best, he would pick up the file folder that Rosie would likely eventually leave behind, and indulge in the mystery his niece had left on the kitchen table, offering his own input and perhaps his own knowledge of the historical case files.

And then, without further adieu, he would repair the hole left behind by their Baker Street Girls, counting it amongst the bits of history that made the charm of the fireplace to begin with.

Eurus shook her head. Time for the bigger picture here.

Stepping forward, she reached her small hand into the hole created by the removal of the brick. Her face took on a blank look of focus as she hunted around blindly. Suddenly, her face changed into one of triumph as her fingers touched and locked onto the prize.


	5. Chapter 5

"Birth certificates," Molly said, as she carefully separated the bundle of papers that Eurus had handed to her. "Four of them. Not carefully preserved but preserved nonetheless."

"Care is indicated," Rosie said, as she looked at the documents, gingerly passing them over to Eurus as she finished with them. "A rudimentary effort to preserve them but at the same time…"

Eurus, the last of the three to study them, finished her niece's sentence.

"At the same time, if an effort to erase the existence of the individuals these belong to had been preferable, they could have easily been tossed into the fireplace. Two of these are from the same date in January 1917. The other two are from the same date in December of the same year. All share the same surname. Twins? Twice in one year?" she asked, perplexed. "Still, that documents from 1917 have survived in such conditions for so long is in and of itself a miracle."

"Perhaps proximity to the heat of the fireplace was key, I would say," Rosie said, thoughtfully. "Too far away and they would have been destroyed by mildew. Too close and they may have crumbled from too much exposure to the dry heat of the fire".

"How far back do the historical case files go?" Molly asked. A long shot was making its way into her mind, one that may prove ridiculously elementary and embarrass her in its naiveté, but as a mother, she had to ask.

"Further back than this, I reckon," Rosie said, still studying the old documents. "If this house is Edwardian, then it predates these birth certificates by no less than 7 years. We have names now, I can look back to see if there were any reports or records of these people. But I have a sick feeling, I won't lie."

Eurus sat down in the loveseat she and Greg loved to share on cooler evenings, curled up under a blanket with a glass of wine, and a roaring fire. She fidgeted uneasily, her mind unable to leave the trail of the code markings that had interrupted their evening of mindless sci-fi viewing and historical hunk ogling. As far as she knew, the bedroom had always been the bedroom, or at least the walls had never been altered, and the bedroom window faced east, to take full advantage of the morning sunlight. The path had led specifically to the spot under the bed. The feelings and thoughts that were beginning to invade her mind were not pleasant ones, to say the least.

"You know, for as much as we don't want to distract the men and bring them into our case," Rosie said thoughtfully, "and no mistakes this IS a case, we should probably find out what Uncle Greg knows about this house, and what his plans were for the bedroom floor specifically. Did he mention if he wanted to take the tiles out or simply cover them over with whatever he had planned to install?"

Molly glanced over at Eurus, whose brows had furrowed over her blue eyes. "You WERE paying attention when he talked of his refurbishing plans, weren't you?" she asked, trying not to giggle. She knew from experience how easy it was to tune out a husband who was rambling on and on about something that had become their momentary obsession.

"Oh, I was paying attention," she said with innocent defensiveness. "For the most part. Sort've. I think." Eurus shrugged apologetically, "Well, you know how it is with detectives. Present company excepted of course," she said, smiling at her niece.

"I'm fairly sure he said he planned to take the tiles out," Eurus continued, her demeanor reverting to a more serious tone. "The floor has become uneven in places over the decades from warping sub flooring and some of the tiles have cracked and disintegrated, especially where heavy pieces of furniture have sat. Gregory loves these tiles but he's called it a necessary evil. If we are on the same train of thought, I think we would be safe to remove the tiles along the coded path. Well, the ones where the path ends at least. Based on what the deciphered code says, I would safely estimate that whatever it refers to is hidden in the bedroom. I believe that the birth certificates indicate the beginning of the trail. I'm just worried about what we may find under there."

"I'm concerned as well," Molly said. "It's just so unusual to hide birth certificates in a wall, and in such a way as to possibly preserve them for whomever may come across them possibly decades into the future. It's almost as though whoever put them there wanted to forget, but wanted the people belonging to the certificates to ultimately be remembered."

"We can talk about this all we want to," Rosie finally said. "Auntie, you said that Uncle Greg planned to take those tiles up anyway. Mum, you have a bad feeling about what we may find. But I think that based upon the evidence of the birth certificates and the historical nature of all of our findings thus far, we might as well just shit or get off the pot and start digging."

"You sound like your father," Molly said, shaking her head with mild amusement. "But you're right. We're here, we're engaged in the case, all of the evidence we've uncovered so far is fresh in our minds… it's doubtful Greg will be home tonight anyway if he's on the trail with Sherlock and John, they'll likely just book into a B&B or something."

Eurus nodded. "He texted me about 20 minutes ago, they'll be back tomorrow sometime," she confirmed. She silently arose from the loveseat, padding in her slippered feet into the small storage area where Greg kept his tools. Searching around briefly, she came out with two hammers, two chisels, a small pry bar, and a mallet.

"This should do the job," she said. "In for a penny, in for a pound. I don't think we're going to like what we find, but whatever is there, it must be found. I won't be able to sleep in that room until this is settled."

Handing out the tools to her niece and her sister-in-law, Eurus took a breath, and headed into the bedroom.


	6. Chapter 6

Having moved the heavy king-sized bed out of the way to expose the flooring, Eurus knew from the first glance that Greg wouldn't mind. The tiles where the legs of the heavy bed had rested were cracked and dented, most likely he would have started on the corners where the tiles were already damaged and would be easy to remove as a starting point.

The sound of casual chatter seemed to peter out as the three women kneeled on the floor, their full focus turning towards chipping and prying out the old flooring in the area surrounding the end of the code pattern. When Molly had cleared an area she had been working on, she found the subfloor in poor shape, and a couple of whacks with just the mallet she had chosen seemed to break through to the recess underneath. Although it was too dark to see into it, she knew that it was a space that likely extended in Rosie's direction, and possibly Eurus's as well.

"Take a look at this," she said, pausing in her efforts. Rosie stopped what she was doing, shimmying over towards Molly with her small pocket torch in her hand.

Shining it downwards into the hole, she wasn't satisfied with the view. "We need to uncover this a little better," she concluded, shifting her own efforts to expand the hole in the floor that Molly had already created.

As the women made progress, Eurus suddenly stopped dead, bringing herself upright from her crouched position. "Oh, no," she said, shock and dismay in her voice. "Oh God, Molly, what do you make of this?" Eurus scooted aside, allowing Molly in. Taking Rosie's torch, she shone it into the hole in the floor that Eurus had created.

"Ladies, we have just gone from a curious distraction to an honest to God sudden death investigation," she concluded. "I don't know how many infants are buried under here but I'm going to take a wild stab and say four."

As they worked together to finish uncovering the tiny burial space, the full impact began to sink in with the three women. Eurus worked grimly, uneasy and saddened at the revelation of what she and Greg had been sleeping over top of for so long. Molly fought back tears at the knowledge that four babies had died and had been hidden away without a proper burial. Rosie worked with a heavy heart and an increased determination to find answers. She knew that it wasn't impossible that she and Will would someday soon start their own family, and finding four children, most likely all under the age of two, angered and saddened her.

When the space had been fully exposed, more carefully since the discovery of what - or rather who - lay beneath the flooring, as Molly had estimated, four small sets of skeletal remains lay exposed for the first time in well over a century.

Her pathologist side kicking in, Molly got to work. "These children are young, and appear to be two sets of twins judging by their sizes. Children grow rapidly at this age and I would estimate the younger set to be no more than five to seven months old. The larger ones I would estimate are closer to sixteenn or eighteen months. The birth certificates suggested one set of fraternal twins, a girl and a boy, and the other set possibly identical twins, two girls, born approximately 11 months apart. What I see here is consistent with that."

Rosie had pulled out her phone, documenting the findings on video, while Eurus hurriedly jotted down notes.

"There doesn't appear to be evidence of trauma or violence. The cervical spines appear to be intact in all four of them, and there is also no evidence of head trauma or injury. Nor do I see any tool marks that might indicate foul play involving a weapon of some kind, but of course soft tissue has long since vanished so these are only educated guesses. I also don't see any evidence that they've been disturbed since they were placed here. The burial site has been protected from vermin and rodents, the skeletons appear to be undamaged and intact, undisturbed." She sat back, thinking. "We're going to have to bring them to the mortuary anyway but I have seniority to take these ones as my own case. If need be, I can also call in a forensic anthropologist to examine them."

Rosie nodded, switching off the camera on her phone and dialling the phone number of her partner, PC Charlotte "Charlie" Carleton.

"Charlie, hey... oh, it's gone okay I suppose... listen, Chucks, we have a problem. I'm out at Uncle Greg and Aunt Eurus's and we've uncovered something… yeah, I know you're off duty, so am I… this didn't exactly happen on purpose… yeah, they're on a case about 40 clicks south of London, they won't be back until later tomorrow… well, first of all, we need to log and transport the skeletal remains of four very young children… I know, I know, but this appears to be a historical case, we've uncovered other evidence that is likely connected… yeah, that would help a lot, if you could look that up, Mum, I mean Dr. Hooper estimates that the remains are well over a century old… well I suppose it could wait until morning but these little ones are in Auntie and Uncle's bedroom. I think she wants them removed as soon as we can manage it… oh that would be wonderful, thank you so much… yeah, yeah, I know, you're the best partner any Scotland Yard PC has ever been blessed with... yeah, I'll see you soon, thanks so much."

Rosie tapped her phone to disconnect the call. "Charlie is on her way out," she said, "and she's bringing a recovery team. We're going to remove these little ones tonight, before we turn in. Mum are you staying out here tonight or heading into St. Bart's?"

Molly thought a moment, glancing over at Eurus. "These babies have waited more than a hundred years to be discovered. One more night won't matter, they'll be in the mortuary waiting on me tomorrow. I really think we should to stay here tonight, love."

Eurus looked over at Molly and smiled softly, nodding gratefully. Rosie moved over to her Aunt, wrapping an arm around her. "Agreed. Now, shall we get our minds off of this macabre business and do some historical hunk ogling? I hear the special effects in the superhero movie are exceptional for the time. Might be interesting to see what the big deal was about this… what was the title character's name? Doctor Odd? Strange? Something like that anyway."

Eurus took a breath and rose to her feet. "Excellent idea Rosamund. I'll make fresh popcorn. What we made hours ago is rather stale. I think a distraction before we turn in is for the best."


	7. Chapter 7

When Molly awoke the next morning in the spare bedroom, she heard her sister-in-law in her music room down the hallway, playing something that Molly didn't recognize, though it was a beautifully peaceful way to wake up. With the sound of a shower running in the bathroom just across the hallway, she knew there wasn't much point in being in a hurry to get up for the loo.

Molly lay there awhile, taking in the sunlight pouring in through the window and basking in the quaintness of the Lestrade cottage, her spirit soothed by Eurus's cello. The odd occasion, when she and Sherlock had happened to spend the night there for whatever reason, one of Greg's better kept secrets - his prowess on an acoustic guitar - had joined his wife's violin to urge the Holmses' gently to wakefulness.

But finally, her grumbling belly urging her along, Molly got out of bed. Heading into the kitchen, She heard Rosie moving around in the spare room, presumably getting dressed, and heard Eurus's music come to a definitive halt.

"I've found this," Eurus said as she entered the kitchen a few steps behind Molly, picking up a small stack of papers from the printer as she walked past the small desk that had been set up in the corner. She handed them over to Molly as she continued to walk towards the oven, grabbing a pair of oven mitts and opening the door to remove a baking pan of sweet rolls.

"This area was apparently hit hard by the Spanish Influenza pandemic in 1918," she said from the other side of the kitchen. "Given the age of the children and the fact that they appear to have passed away at around that same time, is it possible they contracted the virus and succumbed?"

Molly, studying the printouts that Eurus had handed to her, slowly nodded. "I think it's a very real possibility, though why the family chose to bury them as they did is a mystery to me. Unfortunately the conditions of their burial spot are not conducive to the survival of any viral evidence to confirm Spanish flu. I mean, it's been done, but only when the remains have been frozen shortly after burial... certainly not under these particular circumstances."

"Why they weren't buried in the church cemetery is a mystery to me as well," Rosie said. Molly started, winced hard, and swore under her breath. It was no wonder Rosie's policing skills seemed to be sailing along. The girl was bloody stealthy, and Molly wondered if it was possible for such a skill to be genetic, considering Mary's professional assassin-for-hire background. Molly turned around, finding her niece in her full duty PC uniform.

"Perhaps the family had no money for proper burial, or they were simply so bereaved that they were unable to handle the details," Rosie said, walking over to the counter and filling up a travel cup with the fresh coffee Eurus had just made. "I mean, four children lost all under the age of 2 years at essentially the same time had to have been shattering. I'm planning to look through burial records today after my shift to see if I can find anyone who may be kin to these little ones. They deserve a proper burial, and maybe we can solve the mystery of why they were interred the way they were."

"Well, I believe the boys are due home later this afternoon," Eurus said, as she tossed a few muffins she'd made the day before into a baggie, handing them to Rosie. "If I could catch a ride in to the city, I have a feeling we're nearing a conclusion to this. I also need to figure out how to explain to Gregory why we've torn up the floor in our bedroom, though I'm positive that once he hears the whole story he will be more than understanding."

"Oh, Charlie's just pulled into the driveway," Rosie said, glancing out the window. Holding the coffee and the muffins skillfully in one hand and turning to give both her Aunt and her Godmother a one armed hug and a kiss, she said, "I will see you later. As I said, I'll see what I can dig up after my shift, or maybe during my meal break. Shall we meet back here again this evening to compare our findings?"

"Oh yes, I'm counting on that," Eurus said. "I'm making dinner for Molly and the boys, it would be good if you could join us. In the meantime I'm planning to look into the archives at the library this afternoon as well. Molly, do you know when you'll be able to get to the postmortems on the…" Eurus hesitated, not wanting to call these forgotten babies "remains". "On the little ones?"

Molly crossed her arms. "Well, I have two autopsies ahead of them but it's a relatively light caseload today. With them being over a century old there isn't much to go on, so they shouldn't take long. I'm expecting the cause of death will be the same in all four of them."

"Well then, I'll see you both later then. Love you!" Rosie said, waving her way out the door with her free hand.

"When did you have to be at St. Bart's?" Eurus asked Molly, walking over towards the coffee pot to see how much her niece had left for them.

"Oh, I've got some time yet. What's just come out of the oven? I'm famished and it smells divine!"


	8. Chapter 8

Eurus sat at her kitchen table, going through the file folder of information she had gathered that afternoon. With dinner on the go, she had time between waiting for her husband to arrive home, with Sherlock and John in tow, and waiting for the meal to be ready to eat. Molly was expected to return with her own pathology findings, and Rosie, if she could go off shift at the scheduled time, planned to join them as well, hopefully with Will in tow.

The papers Eurus had brought home were spread out on the table. On the ones that Rosie had given to her were burial records of all persons in the local church cemetery bearing the surname of the children they had found in the bedroom. Eurus was very quickly piecing together a heartbreaking story from the dates and names from several families of the era, and not simply the ones they sought answers for. Looking at the baptismal records that had also been acquired, she was able to put together a reasonable estimate of what had happened.

Knowing that a pandemic had ravaged the world and taken many lives in the process from this very area, it wasn't a difficult conclusion to come to. She sighed sadly, wondering if there had been any survivors amongst the family that had lived in this little country cottage all those generations ago, besides the one she had developed a reasonable guess on.

"Pot roast, thank GOD, I am so sick of pub takeaway and it's only been a day and a half," Eurus heard a deep gravelly teddy bear voice call out. Rising from her chair at the table, Eurus bounded towards the door, embracing Greg with a joyously passionate greeting.

"Oh please, do you not have a room for that," Sherlock groaned, rolling his multi-coloured feline eyes. John, following directly behind the taller man, snorted in amusement.

Sherlock cleared his throat, then shuffled his feet, while John studied some of the cabinetry work that Greg had tinkered with. "Look, isn't that some incredible craftsmanship?" John said, pointing upwards and trying to distract Sherlock.

"Yes, yes very impressive," Sherlock replied, following John's lead and feigning interest, nodding with faux appreciation. "Oh, Molly love, I'm so glad you're here already," he suddenly said, noticing his wife arrive through the door. "I have MISSED you so," he murmured seductively, taking her into his arms and pulling her into a deep kiss.

John, knowing there wasn't much point in saying anything, as nobody would hear him anyway, shook his head with a sardonic grin to himself and made his way over to the oven. Picking up a pot holder and taking a peek, he made a subtle pretense of checking on the meal, and tactfully ignoring the happy reunions by the doorway.

Noticing the papers on the table, however, he walked over to take a look. His eyes grew wide and a low whistle escaped from his lips. "I thought you ladies were going to watch movies while we were gone. What happened to your estrogen saturated hunk fest?"

"We got distracted," Molly said. "We found ourselves embroiled in something of a closed room mystery."

Greg, standing with his arms still wrapped around Eurus, frowned, alarmed worry passing over his still boyish features. "What, here? In our cottage? What room?" he asked, turning his dark gaze down towards his wife.

"Now now darling," Eurus cooed reassuringly, "It's nothing to be concerned about. We just… well I think John has it figured out now. Most of the details are on the table. And don't fret over the bedroom floor… or the brick out of the fireplace..." Eurus swallowed a hiccup of guilt as Greg's expressive brown eyes directed a questioning look down at her. "It's all easily fixable and once you know the full story you will no doubt agree that it could not be avoided."

Greg's frown morphed into a look of deep curiosity as he broke his gaze with his wife. Catching a glimpse of John's reaction to the papers spread across the table, he walked over to join him.

"Oh," Greg said soberly. "This is…"

"A bit not good," John said.

"Yeah, that," Greg replied, sitting down.

Sherlock, having just joined them, quickly scanned the documents and muttered, "Oh my. This is... In a way, bad. Very bad."

A knock was heard on the door, and Molly, turning to answer it, was met by Rosie, still in her duty uniform, and Will, finished with his classes for the day.

"So, we're all here now," Molly said. "Shall we get straight to it then?"


	9. Chapter 9

"Well, this all started when your daughter noticed something in the floor tiles. Trust the Goddaughter of Sherlock Holmes to pick up on something like that," Molly said, shaking her head at John. "She surmised that it may be some sort of a code, and Eurus confirmed that, deciphering it easily. This led us to digging out a brick near the fireplace chamber, where we found these," Molly said, pointing towards the brittle birth certificates.

"From there," Rosie continued, "Auntie Eurus determined that the code on the floor, which was a simple set of directions, led to something bigger than simply some old papers hidden in the wall."

Greg, still a little alarmed at the use of demolition tools in his beloved little house, looked like he wanted to start interrogating his wife and niece, but wisely refrained from doing so. Sometimes, he knew, you got better answers by listening rather than by asking.

Besides, Eurus was the most clever person he'd ever met, and Rosie was a brilliant young copper who had been raised by Holmes and Watson, and mentored by himself as well. She'd already learned every trick from all three of them and he knew he wouldn't get far at all with any of that ridiculous folly.

"The gaping hole where our bed normally sits held a rather macabre secret, darling," Eurus said. "Under the flooring we found the burial spot of four very young children. Rosie called it in and Charlie came out with a recovery team last night to collect them and take them in to the mortuary at St. Bart's." She watched quietly as some of the colour drained from Greg's face.

"Now, based upon my findings on my lunch break, what Mum found out in her examinations," Rosie said, nodding in Molly's direction, "and Auntie Eurus's deductions, we think we know what happened."

"The remains were clearly not recent, and I determined with reasonable probability that they were the same children as had been listed on the birth certificates we found in the wall. They all bore the same family name," Molly said. Sherlock shuffled in his chair, then settled, his focus on his wife undivided. "The baptismal records indicate that they were siblings. Tragically, this area was one of countless areas worldwide that was stricken by the Spanish influenza pandemic in 1918 through 1919. It would appear that the children fell victim and passed away."

"Sadly, according to burial records from the local cemetery," Eurus continued, "it would appear that the parents also succumbed to the influenza. Based upon the ages of the children and the records from the church, the parents passed away several months before the babies did."

"Now, according to the baptismal records, there was one older sibling, I believe she would have been around 14 years old at the time of her parents' deaths," Rosie continued. "She was likely left to care for her infant siblings, and I would imagine she was rather overwhelmed by the whole thing, especially when they fell ill with influenza. We have no proof of course, some of this is based upon science and observation, conclusions drawn from evidence… and some of it is educated guesswork based upon the facts we've been able to determine."

"She was just a young girl herself," Molly said, "and I believe that the stress from the circumstances may have broken her. When her siblings passed away, she may no longer have been emotionally equipped to deal with it. As best as we can determine, she buried her poor baby siblings in the floor. From there, she likely detached herself psychologically, which is where the code and the birth certificates came in."

"I think she was a very very clever girl," Eurus said quietly. "And as a result, she was very fragile. She may not have realized what she was doing when she buried them, but something in her own alternate reality wanted to create a way for them to be found and properly buried. She just didn't know how to do that. So she created what in her own mind was a simple code with a simple set of directions and used some sort of stain to apply it to the tiles. At the start of her code trail lay the birth certificates behind the brick she dug out. At the end of it, lay their burial spot. The poor girl must have spent a great deal of time in isolation to replace the flooring the way she did. It was meticulously done. Once she had enclosed the spot, which she must have done rather quickly, she would have had plenty of time to install the tiles."

"My God," John muttered. "Do you know what happened to her?"

"Unfortunately dad," Rosie said, "the records we were able to find show no indication of her fate. We can only hope that she found someone to care for her. Our conclusions end here."

"I've managed to arrange for the children to be buried in the cemetery in their family plot, with their parents," Molly said.

"So darling," Eurus said, turning to Greg, "I hope you understand why we had to dig up the bedroom floor and pry a brick out of your fireplace." She smiled hopefully. Greg's frown of curiosity had turned into one of sadness at the tale the ladies had uncovered.

"Of course," he said, reaching up with his hand to brush the curls aside and leaning in to kiss her forehead. "Considering what's been under the bed all this time, I'm glad you found them sooner rather than later. I don't know when I was going to get around to it, but I was going to take the flooring out anyway, no worries, love."

"So, this is quite the mystery you ladies have come across," Sherlock said, sounding mildly impressed – which for Sherlock, meant that he was in actual fact, VERY impressed.

"You're not surprised they solved it all on their little owns?" John chided jokingly, giving him a gentle jab in the shoulder. John knew Sherlock was bloody proud of the ladies, just as he was himself, but he just couldn't help teasing him a little bit.

"Don't be ridiculous, John," Sherlock laughed, understanding the context of John's harassment. "I mean really, look at them," he said, waving his hand proudly towards their Baker Street Girls. "A doctor, a copper, and a clever woman with a knack for puzzles. Of _course_ they were going to solve it without us. How could there be any doubt?"


End file.
